E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Leah Moser,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
The scheme of publishing a volume of essays dealing withunderlying aims and principles of education was originated by theUniversity Press Syndicate. It seemed to promise something both ofuse and interest, and the further arrangements were entrusted to asmall Committee, with myself as secretary and acting editor.
Our idea has been this: at a time of much educational enterpriseand unrest, we believed that it would be advisable to collect theopinions of a few experienced teachers and administrators uponcertain questions of the theory and motive of education which lie alittle beneath the surface.
To deal with current and practical problems does not seem thefirst need at present. Just now, work is both common as wellas fashionable; most people are doing their best; and, if anything,the danger is that organisation should outrun foresight andintelligence. Moreover a weakening of the oldcompulsion of the classics has resulted, not in perfect freedom,but in a tendency on the part of some scientific enthusiasts simplyto substitute compulsory science for compulsory literature, whenthe real question rather is whether obligatory subjects should notbe diminished as far as possible, and more sympathetic attentiongiven to faculty and aptitude.
We have attempted to avoid mere current controversial topics,and to encourage our contributors to define as far as possible theaim and outlook of education, as the word is now interpreted.
We have not furthered any educational conspiracy, nor attemptedany fusion of view. Our plan has been first to select some of themost pressing of modern problems, next to find well-equippedexperts and students to deal with each, and then to give thevarious writers as free a hand as possible, desiring them to speakwith the utmost frankness and personal candour. We have notdirected the plan or treatment or scope of any essay; and my owneditorial supervision has consisted merely in making detailedsuggestions on smaller points, in exhorting contributors to bepunctual and diligent, and generally revising what the NewTestament calls jots and tittles. We have been very fortunate inmeeting with but few refusals, and our contributors readilyresponded to the wish which we expressed, thatthey should write from the personal rather than from the judicialpoint of view, and follow their own chosen method of treatment.
We take the opportunity of expressing our obligations to all whohave helped us, and to Viscount Bryce for bestowing, as few are sojustly entitled to do, an educational benediction upon our schemeand volume.
A.C. BENSON
MAGDALENE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
August 18, 1917
By the Right Hon. VISCOUNT BRYCE,O.M.
I. THE AIM OF EDUCATIONALREFORM
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